Want to be a Better Social Media Marketer? Listen to These 10 Podcasts

The last time I went on vacation, Facebook and Instagram announced two big product changes that I was left scrambling to catch up on when I returned.

Know the feeling? If you work in social media marketing, my guess is you know it all too well.

Social media is constantly evolving, making today an exciting time to work in marketing. This can also mean that you sometimes feel as if you're falling behind on your general social media knowledge and education.

The solution? Podcasts.

In this blog post, we put together a list of 10 podcast episodes that deliver helpful and actionable guidance for social media marketers looking to brush up on their skills in a quick and entertaining way.

10 Amazing Podcasts About Social Media

In this episode, Kerry O'Shea Gorgone speaks with Chief Marketing Officer of the Clearwater Marine Aquarium, Bill Potts. They discuss Winter the dolphin, whose story of recovery from losing her tail was chronicled in the movie Dolphin Tale. Thanks to their social media and public relations teams' relentless work to get Winter's story shared with local media outlets, she eventually became the star of a hit film (seriously, rent this movie).

In light of the Aquarium's newfound fame, Potts talks about their strategies for maintaining the momentum of the Dolphin Tale films by investing in social media more than ever. In particular, they've experienced a lot of engagement by live streaming video of their animals on Facebook Live, Periscope, and Snapchat. (You can learn how to master Facebook Live with the help of this free guide.)

[Live-streams are] not super-rehearsed. They really are authentic. We focus on the animal, we focus on the story, and we don't script it. We have an outline of what we want to be reviewed during the live webcast, but we make sure they're naturally delivered. They're really not rehearsed. They just happen. We do schedule and plan them, and we do know what's going to be discussed, but we make it really authentic. It's a one-take deal."

Key Takeaways:

All organizations have a story to tell, whether it's about their mission, an individual, or a certain achievement. Give it the direction it needs to garner attention from media.

Don't just talk about yourself: Get others to talk about you on social media and in the press to earn more attention. (Here's a handy PR guide to help with that.)

Live streams should be raw, unscripted, and authentic: You can practice using the technology, but ultimately, remain flexible to allow room for more genuine content. (Check out this live streaming checklist before you get started.)

Don't be afraid to experiment with how and where you're sharing video content. For example, the aquarium turns over their Snapchat to trainers working with animals 1:1 so followers can see how the aquarium helps marine life up close.

Learn about your audience and where to reach them: For the aquarium, it's mothers on Facebook.

Duration: 25:20

2) Online Marketing Made Easy with Amy Porterfield: How to Get Started with Facebook Live

This episode of Amy Porterfield's marketing podcast features Kim Garst of Boom Social, where they discuss best practices and strategies for using Facebook Live. Main themes of this episode included determining how often to broadcast, apprehension about broadcasting live and making mistakes, and uncertainty about measuring success.

I think the reason live video is so impactful (again, this is my opinion and what I’ve seen through my personal experiences and watching other people) is that people are so attracted to people who are not just real, but people that are relatable. In other words, they can see themselves having that issue."

Key Takeaways:

Consistency is a contributor to successful live streams: Create a regular schedule on Facbeook Live or Periscope to expand your reach after you stop broadcasting live.

Carefully choose your broadcast's headline: Remember, this is an opportunity to grab more attention from followers.

Incorporate an offer into pre-outreach for your Facebook Live event. For example, tell followers that you'll be giving away promo codes, ebooks, or checklists that they can only download if they tune in.

Have a strategy to achieve a specific goal for every single broadcast, and don't just talk for the sake of sharing.

Find a way to capture people's attention while they scroll: Facebook only counts "Views" as users who watched for 10 seconds or more.

In the interview, Westergaard discusses the fact that everyone knows they need to create content, but not everyone knows how to do it most effectively. Many content creators don't operate with a comprehensive strategy, which can make people object putting in the work to make content pay off. Westergaard mentions the term "checklist marketing," which he says refers to marketers tackling every new marketing strategy like an item on a to-do list without objectives or strategy in mind.

You have to gamify it a little bit and think about, if you're creating one thing, how many more things can I create out of this? ... By planning one piece of content, I create many."

Key Takeaways:

Try a team approach to social media content creation to both share the workload and curate a diverse array of content -- even from colleagues who aren't marketers.

Experiment with user-generated content: Develop a campaign around an event or hashtag so your followers are sharing photos and messages that you can share with your networks.

Repurpose content: If you're writing a blog post or designing an infographic (here are some helpful templates for that), find a way to create smaller pieces of it that can be used as social media posts. Additionally, you can string smaller pieces of content together to create an ebook or guide.

Take part in #TBT: Align your older content with current events and re-share it on social media. This takes advantage of nostalgia marketing and re-promotes content you've already created.

Their discussions are varied and well worth the full listen, but the overarching theme was how brands' perception impacts their success (or lack thereof). Pine mentions that customers make choices because they're bought into the dreams and imagery surrounding big brands, and that once they start using the product, they start to believe the message.

Ubiquity is the death of authenticity."

Key Takeaways:

Take advantage of the opportunity to cultivate and promote what makes your brand unique. There's always room for bragging on social media -- just do it in moderation.

Be authentic and real, but don't say that's what you're doing. Consumers want authenticity, not disingenuity.

Tell stories with a sense of place to drive greater authenticity: Set the stage when sharing blog posts, updates, and videos on social media so followers can see the kind of activities your organization is up to.

A/B test different types of post on social platforms to see how they perform comparatively: Consumers don't objectively think a product or service is good or bad -- branding and marketing messages impact their perception, and that's in your hands.

During the discussion, Kawasaki admits that he prefers Instagram to Snapchat due to its superior content discoverability features and analytics options. And when it comes to Facebook Live, he is bought in.

In fact, he mentions that while taking a break from streaming on vacation, his Facebook reach was only 400,000 users, versus the 1 million users he sees when he's streaming regularly. (Spoiler alert: He also lets listeners in on his secrets to greater engagement during live streams -- but you'll have to listen to find out what they are.)

I don't want positive, supportive, wonderful, reinforcing engagement on social media. I want any kind of engagement."

Key Takeaways:

Facebook Live drives greater engagement and reach than publishing recorded video or sharing a YouTube link.

When you're streaming live on Facebook, have a second screen (and ideally a teammate) available to see what comments or questions are rolling in from your audience so you can answer them live.

6) Hashtagged: Focusing on Creating Content and Community Versus Being an Influencer with Dan Joyce

In this episode of Hashtagged, host Jordan Powers interviews Dan Joyce, a content creator on Instagram, about the cultivation of vibrant and engaged social media communities. Joyce was one of Instagram's very first users.

They swap stories about how they started using Instagram first as a creative outlet, and then eventually as a tool for content creation and personal networking. As a professional content creator, Joyce initially began experimenting with Instagram, but it's since evolved into a powerful network that photographers and other content creators can harness:

[The] platform has provided a breadth of knowledge about photography and content creation in a way that makes big social network a lot smaller ... There are so many types of content being shared on Instagram, it's created its own ecosystem."

Key Takeaways:

You can't force becoming an influencer or thought leader, even on social media. Share lots of unique and creative content to grow your social network, and followers will come after.

Individuals and brands can use Instagram as a more professional portfolio of photographs and Snapchat as a more lighthearted photo log of their day-to-day.

Bernoff's mission is to eliminate convoluted writing from marketing, and he thinks it's a challenge because we were rewarded for writing long papers when we first learned to write in school. Now, that experience is impacting social media posts, press releases, and blog posts in a detrimental way.

Key Takeaways:

Get to the point. You should aim to say what you mean in the first 2-3 sentences of whatever you're writing.

Adopt Baer's ROAM content marketing checklist: Who are the readers? What are your objectives? What follow-up action do you want to inspire from the reader? What impression will people have of your organization when they read your content?

Always have another set of eyes look over your content, even Facebook captions. Never publish a first draft.

In his podcast #AskGaryVee, Digital Marketing Expert Gary Vanyerchuk answers questions from his followers (delightfully coined "VanyerPeeps"), and his entertaining responses make it worth the listen. At the beginning of this episode, Vanyerchuk answers questions from a VaynerPeep about strategies for hacking YouTube growth.

Vanyerchuk believes that for all content creation -- be it blog, video, or social media -- the distribution is more important than the creation, and that those priorities are often the opposite to modern marketers. It's not enough to write a great blog post, or produce a great YouTube video: it has to be seen and picked up by the right people, and that won't happen unless you hustle for it.

You have to continue to bring value and produce good content, but you also need people to know about it.

Key Takeaways:

Try collaborating with other YouTubers or influencers in your space on social media. If you can't offer them exposure, what can you offer them in exchange for their partnership? Always offer value.

Use targeted hashtags on Instagram to grow your audience there. Do some research to determine which tags are generating the highest levels of engagement.

Join forums within your industry communities to develop a network of support that you can reach out to for social sharing, promotion, and participation in your social media campaigns.

Duration: 17:55 (YouTube answer ends at 8:00)

10) Social Media Social Hour: Behind the Data: A Quantitative Look at the Future of Social Media

In this episode of Social Media Social Hour, presented by Scoreboard Social and Casual Fridays, host Tyler Anderson interviews CEO of the Social Fresh, Jason Keath, to discuss the outlook of the future of social media. Social Fresh recently conducted a survey of over 500 participants about how brands are measuring, or not measuring, the ROI of their social media strategies.

Anderson and Keath discussed many of the findings in the report, with results often circling back to the outlook that video will continue to dominate social media in terms of engagement and ROI. This episode provides in-depth analysis and conversation without being too lengthy, with lots of helpful tips and actionable next steps for listeners along the way.

No one is seeing a return on what they're doing on Snapchat right now... but people are passionate about the engagement opportunity."

Key Takeaways:

Prioritize social networks that deliver the greatest ROI: According to the report, those networks are Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn (in that order).

Instagram is projected to overtake Twitter in terms of popularity and ROI. Keath speculates that it's because Instagram is less saturated than Twitter, which leads to greater engagement.

Get the ball rolling on a video strategy: The number of respondents creating video assets on a monthly basis is growing -- it ranked third for assets marketers are creating after images and blog posts.

Duration: 35:10

Are you a social media marketer? What podcasts do you listen to that we missed? Share with us in the comments below.